Mercury seafaring robot braves through Hurricane Sandy’s wrath

By Gene Ryan Briones on 11/02/2012 21:20 PST

Amidst the wrath of Hurricane Sandy earlier this week, a seafaring robot bravely scoured the waters 100 miles east of New Jersey to monitor and transmit hurricane data. The robot, called Mercury, is actually built by Liquid Robotics, an ocean data service provider and developer of the Wave Glider. Liquid Robotics says that Mercury battled through Hurricane Sandy and successfully piloted through winds up to 70 knots while transmitting weather data in real time. Mercury’s sensors was able to gather a “dramatic” data from the surface of the ocean as Sandy neared landfall, with the barometric pressure of over 54.3 mbars to a low of 946 mbars.

“Mercury now joins the fleet of other Wave Gliders that have come through Category I hurricanes to successfully fulfill their missions,” said Dr. Edward Lu, chief of innovative applications for Liquid Robotics. “This is a testament to our robust and reliable technology and proof of its readiness for severe weather data collection.” The Wave Glider is an unmanned autonomous marine robot that features state-of-the-art with communication systems and computers. You can learn more about it here.